President Trump’s suggestion that Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War has “ricocheted around the Internet,” Andrew Exum notes at The Atlantic. Though critics question Trump’s facts, “he seems to have understood lessons about Jackson’s success that progressives, to their detriment, have largely forgotten.” Jackson “brought new voters into the American democratic experiment and gave a political voice to those who had previously been voiceless.” And what you hear from Trump supporters today is “how turned off they are by the smug self-righteousness of contemporary progressive discourse.” It’s “no wonder Trump’s voters feel condescended to: They’re not in on the joke; they’re the butt of the joke.” What Trump gets about Jackson is what got him elected; “what the Democrats forget” is “why they’re in the wilderness.”

Mideast desk: Behind Bibi’s Dust-Up with Germany

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised eyebrows when, in an apparent breach of protocol, he refused to meet with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel. The reason, says Daniel Gordis at Bloomberg: Gabriel refused to skip a sitdown with Break the Silence, an outfit“deeply critical of the Israeli army’s conduct.” The group, he notes is “is seen by many as irresponsible and treasonous,” aimed at trying to sully the army’s reputation abroad. Indeed, “some Europeans are now questioning the propriety of their support” for it.Netanyahu “has decided not to ignore what he sees as baseless attacks on Israel or Jews” — especially during the same week when Israel mourned its fallen soldiers and the victims of the Holocaust.

Analyst: New Challenge to NYC’s Property-Tax Mess

It isn’t news to anyone “that New York City’s property-tax system is all screwed up,” contends Greg David at Crain’s New York Business. Now, some big landlords and civil-rights groups have filed a lawsuit “arguing that the system is deeply unfair.” Hopefully, he says, it will put Mayor de Blasio “and other city politicians on the hot seat they so richly deserve.” Over the decades, the city has extended tax breaks to owners of single-family home as well as co-ops and condos and limited the rate of increase. “This benefit goes to homeowners in areas where property values are rising the fastest; the mayor himself is a prime beneficiary.” And since “minorities are more likely to be renters than owners,” most minority homeowners “are in neighborhoods with the highest tax rates.”

From the right: Insuring the Uninsurable

Chris Pope at National Review spells out the basic dilemma of ObamaCare and the stumbling block to its repeal: The current law was “in large part justified by the desire to make health insurance affordable for low-income individuals with pre-existing conditions.” But doing so without regard to cost ensures “that premiums well exceed the levels attractive to the healthy, and that insurers lack the funds to meet the needs of those who are already sick.” So Republicans should “restructure existing direct subsidies to better target them at the individuals who need help the most.” And that means letting insurers “sell plans off the exchange priced proportionately to the health-care needs of each enrollee, leaving the exchange subsidies more narrowly focused on low-income chronically ill individuals who are unable to afford plans elsewhere.”
Culture critic: Now It’s Walking That’s Dangerous

Parents, did you give away your stroller when your kids turned five or so? Too bad, says Ashley McGuire at Acculturated — “if you have young teens, you’re gonna need it.” That’s because the American Academy of Pediatricians apparently believes that “kids younger than 14 cannot cross the street without a grown-up,” citing their lack of “perceptual judgment and physical skills.” Yet the same group believes “a minor should be able to get an abortion, without their parents’ consent no less.” And “also thinks kids should be able to get themselves sterilized if they are sexually active as minors” through long-acting reversible contraceptives.
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann